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We know that one of the benefits of having Panasonic network cameras in the home is the added security they bring. This is nowhere better illustrated than their ability to detect motion and send a series of images to your email address.

If you always wanted to set this up but you weren’t sure where to begin then you’ve come to the right place. This guide will take you step by step through the whole process and is designed to be as painless as possible.
This guide will be suitable for the following Panasonic Network Cameras:

• BL-C1
• BL-C20
• BL-C10
• BL-C30
• BB-HCM311
• BB-HCM331
• BB-HCM381
• BB-HCE481

Step 1

Log into your camera as an administrator using your User Name and Password.

Step 2

Click the ‘Setup‘ tab at the top of the screen to enter the camera’s setup mode and on the menu positioned to the left, click on the ‘Trigger‘ option under the ‘Buffer/Transfer‘ heading. This will show you a list of possible events or actions that the camera is set to perform. Note that the status of all the events will initially be set to ‘off‘.

Step 3

We want to create only one trigger so click on the first one. To do that, click on ‘1‘ under the column heading ‘No.‘ You will be presented with the ‘Trigger Setting‘ page.

Step 4

Click in the checkbox ‘Enable Image Buffer/Transfer‘ and select ‘Motion Detection‘ as the trigger. This enables the trigger, turns it on and selects the method of triggering to be based on motion detection. To continue, click the ‘next‘ button at the bottom of the page. You will then be presented with the first ‘Motion Detection Setting‘ page.

Step 5

This page allows you to schedule when you want your trigger to work. As default it is set to ‘Always‘ but you can configure it so that it will only send you an email, for example overnight or only during the week. Once you’re happy with the settings, click the ‘next‘ button at the bottom of the page. You will be presented with the next page entitled ‘Motion Detection Setting‘.

Step 6

This page allows you to move the camera to a specific preset when it detects motion. A good example of this would be having the camera move to cover an entrance or window whenever motion is detected. You must first configure your pre-sets in the camera (on the ‘Single Camera‘ page) before you can apply them here. This is an optional setting and once you’re happy click the ‘next‘ button at the bottom to continue. You will be presented with the third ‘Motion Detection Setting‘ page.

Step 7

This page will allow you to choose an image size (resolution) and image quality for the images which will be sent to you via email. Note that a larger image size and better quality image has a larger file size so will take longer to download to your inbox. Once you’re happy with the settings click the ‘next‘ button to continue. You will be shown the next ‘Motion Detection Setting‘ screen.

Step 8

This page will allow you set the number of images you will be sent by the camera to your email address. Note that because the camera keeps a buffer of images in its own memory it is possible to be sent images before the motion event took place, this is known as the Pre-Trigger image buffer. So, you can set the number of images before the trigger took effect in the pre-trigger buffer and the number of images after the trigger took effect in the post-trigger buffer. Once you’re happy with the settings click the ‘next‘ button to continue. This will take you to the next ‘Motion Detection Setting‘ page.

Step 9

This page asks what you want to do with the images once they have been triggered. Select ‘E-mail‘ from the list and click the ‘next‘ button to continue. This takes you to another ‘Motion Detection Setting‘ page.

Step 10

This page is probably the most complicated page in this guide as it requires technical information about your email account. You will find this information from your email supplier or inside your email application such as Outlook or Outlook Express. I’ll go through this an entry at a time:

• SMTP Server IP Address or Host Name: This will come from your email settings. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express then go into your email account and look at your account properties. Your SMTP address will be in there.

• Port No.: This is the port number for SMTP and is 25 as standard. You will only have to change this if you know your email uses a non-standard port.

• Reply email address: This can be anything. When your camera sends an email , this will be the address it says it has come from. You will probably want to use your own address here.

• Destination Email Address: You can send the email to up to 3 email addresses. Select which addresses you want emails to go to here.

• Subject: This would be the text that appears in the subject line of the email.

• Text: You can add your own text to be included in the emails in this box. Something like ‘Motion detection images from Camera 4′ for example.

• Authentication: Try without authentication first and leave this section blank. If your email requires authentication then fill out the fields using information provided by your ISP for your email account. If you require authentication check the box marked ‘SMTP authentication‘

• Login ID: Your email username

• Password: Your email password

If you still can’t get an email from the camera try using the ‘POP before SMTP authentication‘ option:

• POP3 Server IP Address: As with the SMTP address, you will find your POP3 address in your email settings.

• Port No.: Port 110 is the default and will likely be ok. Only change if you know your port for POP3 has been changed.

• Login: Your email username.

• Password: Your email password.

Once you’re happy with the email set up, click the ‘next‘ button to continue.

You may find you have to revisit this page until you get a successful email from the camera. Just try various email settings until it works.

Step 11

The next page gives you the option to have an email sent when the camera has detected motion. This is additional to the emails you would recieve with images attached and is only used to notify you that motion has been detected. This email can be sent to a different address than the images and if you select ‘yes‘ you will have to re-enter your email details again as Step 10.

Step 12

After you have skipped or configured your email notification in Step 11 you will be finished. The ‘next‘ button will now have changed to a ‘save‘ button. Click the ‘save‘ button to save your trigger.

Finish

That should be your camera set up. If you want to disable the emails being sent then just select your trigger, by clicking the ‘1‘ link, and on the first screen entitled ‘Trigger Setting‘ un-check the box ‘Enable Image Buffer/Transfer‘ to disable the trigger and click the ‘save‘ button at the bottom. The settings will remain but the trigger will be deactivated. Of course, you can enable it again any time by doing the reverse.

One important factor to bear in mind when setting this up is that each image will be sent to your selected email address in a separate email. Therefore, you may want to limit the amount of images in the pre- and post-alarm buffer for this reason. Trial and error testing will help you determine the best settings to use.

If you have any comments or questions about this guide please leave them below and we will do our best to answer them as soon as possible.

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